Coming up on Word Matters, just what is an editor at large?
I'm Emily Brewster,
and Word Matters is produced by Merriam-Webster in collaboration with New England Public Media.
On each episode, Merriam-Webster editors Amon Shea, Peter Sakalowski,
and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.
Enlarging something was not always about making it bigger.
In fact, for Shakespeare, it meant something else entirely.
That something else makes perfect sense when you recognize some of the word's close relations.
Peter explains.
Sometimes I get asked what it means to be an editor at large,
writer at large, selectman at large, counselor at large.
These are titles.
But they do have a kind of funny circularity.
In other words,
it means that you don't have a specific assignment and yet people also wonder about the specificity of that title.
What does it mean if it means that you don't have a specific assignment?
It almost seems like they're everywhere.
They're all encompassing.
I thought the large just referred to their ambition or something like that.
But it is true that the more you think about it, the less it makes sense.